WPI frat objects to parking ban

Nick Kotsopoulos TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

Published Thursday November 29, 2012 at 10:00 am

Updated Thursday November 29, 2012 at 8:27 pm

PHOTO/ T&G Staff Photos/TOM RETTIG

Phi Gamma Delta members at WPI stand on a deck at their fraternity house, at the corner of Boynton and Salisbury streets. The frat wants to maintain parking on both sides of Boynton Street. From left are Drew Digeser, 22, of Albany N.Y.; Geordi Folinas, 21, of Spring Lake Heights, N.J.; and David J. Liston, 22, of Saint Paul, Minn.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute is getting push-back from a fraternity over its effort to get the city to ban parking along one side of Boynton Street, from Salisbury Street to Institute Road.

WPI has petitioned the City Council for the parking prohibition because the college believes the street is too narrow to allow parking on both sides of the street while also safely accommodating two lanes of traffic

.

“WPI views it as an unsafe condition with parking on both sides of the street,” Stephen Madaus, a lawyer representing the college, told the City Council Traffic and Parking Committee last night. “We view it as a safety issue.”

But members of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, located at the corner of Salisbury and Boynton streets, are fighting the request, saying it will have a major impact on the approximately 40 residents who live in the fraternity house at 99 Salisbury St. Of the 40 residents, 20 to 30 of them have vehicles.

With the loss of on-street parking on the east side of Boynton Street, fraternity members will be forced to scramble to find other overnight parking accommodations elsewhere in the neighborhood, where parking availability is already at a premium.

“Parking in the area for residents of Boynton Street is already strained,” said Geordie Folinas, a member of Phi Gamma Delta's executive board and a senior at WPI. “Residents of the house are in dire need of overnight, year-round parking. Members of our fraternity are denied parking privileges in the (WPI) lot on Boynton Street, so we have to park on the street.

“We understand the safety issues with the street, but we have seen no data or hard evidence to support the claim that eliminating parking on one side of the street will make it safer,” he added.

The section of Boynton Street between Salisbury Street to Institute Road runs through the eastern part of the WPI campus, including in front of two residence halls and the campus police building.

Mr. Madaus said Boynton Street is only about 30 feet wide in that stretch. Because the street is so narrow, he pointed out, the city already does not allow parking on either side of the street between Dec. 1 and April 1 each winter.

He said WPI will be opening up a 527-space parking garage on its campus along Park Avenue in January and it is believed that will free up off-street parking around the campus and alleviate the parking crunch there.

“We believe (the street) operates safer during the winter parking ban,” Mr. Madaus said. “We think it should be that way year-round.”

Alfred DiMauro Jr., vice president of facilities at WPI, said the college has extended to the fraternity an option for “preferred access” to buying parking passes for its 189-space parking garage on Dean Street, before availability there is opened up to the general community.

He said the fraternity residents would be able to purchase passes for $350 a year, the same price any student or staff member pays for a pass for that garage. He said that because there are fraternities throughout the neighborhood, the college has some limitations on being able to accommodate everybody at a specific fraternity when it comes to parking.

“This has been a long-standing issue of safety,” Mr. DiMauro said. “The street simply is not conducive to having parking on both sides and two lanes of traffic.”

Even though WPI has an open-air parking lot on Boynton Street, fraternity residents cannot park in the nearby lot because it is restricted to staff and commuting students. Those living in fraternities are not considered commuters, even though they do not live in campus housing.

Mr. Folinas said there are no assurances that the new parking garage along Park Avenue will alleviate the overnight parking problem on Boynton Street because its use will be restricted to staff and students who commute to school.

In addition to residents living in fraternity houses, he said there are a number of students who live in Founders Hall and East Hall who also park on Boynton Street overnight because they do not want to pay the $350 fee to park in the Dean Street garage.

“It's a very difficult situation,” Mr. Folinas said. “We are open to a compromise, and we have proposed making Boynton Street one-way while still allowing parking on both sides of the street, but WPI opposes that.”

District 1 Councilor Tony Economou, committee chairman, urged WPI officials and fraternity representatives to get together to see if some kind of compromise can be worked out.

Councilors-at-Large Frederick C. Rushton and Kathleen M. Toomey echoed that sentiment, pointing out since parking is already prohibited on that stretch of Boynton Street between Dec. 1 and April 1, only four months (September, October, November and April) of the school year have to be addressed.

“I don't believe the two sides are far apart,” Mr. Economou said. “I'd like to see them get together and work out something that they can agree to rather than have us come up with a solution that might not satisfy either part.”